This is the board where Arsenal fans can discuss all things Arsenal, and any other football issues that they feel are of interest to Gunners. Opposition fans are welcome, but remember this board is from an Arsenal point of view. Off Topic Discussion should take place on the Off Topic Forum. Off Topic discussion will be removed. Any topic that is football related, within reason, is not off topic.

1) Wenger desires to address Fabregas' frustration in being substituted late in Spain's Euro 2008 game when a more defensive approach is needed to defend a slender lead.

2) He did it by laying 4-2-3-1 with Dneilson-FAbregas partnership in a holding midfield role but with one of them sittign back when he partner drives into the box.

3) Denilson is still "work-in-progress" as Libero. But give him 2 seasons more, he will blossom into that defensive steel of a Makelele. I think Denislon is slightly taller than Makelele isn't it?

4) The TEAM was completely disrupted by major injuries, especialy Fabregas and Walcott which limited our attacking option.

5) Again, the failure of Eboue and Diaby to develop to takeover the slake in the absence of Rosicky, Fabregas, Heb and Flamini.

****************************************************
But the signs are good we are gettingn there.
And the purchase of Arshavin makes all the difference in providing guile and creativeness isntead of those drab displays in 2008.

- Denilson is improving,
- Diaby is getting into stride to fulfil his potential,
- Nasri is playing more centrally,
- Bendtner is coming to grip with his "Lone Striker" role.
- Walcott returning next week,
- Eduardo returning within 2 week.

The glaring weakness is of course van Persie who has yet to develop an understanding with hsi team-mates and somewhat make me feel that bulk of hsi goals are due to his individual briliancy and not created by team-work.

Van Persie is an egnima.

Will he ever fit into an Arsene Wenger team with telegraphic understanding with hsi c0-partner and all midfielders?

The glaring weakness is of course van Persie who has yet to develop an understanding with hsi team-mates and somewhat make me feel that bulk of hsi goals are due to his individual briliancy and not created by team-work.
Van Persie is an egnima.

Will he ever fit into an Arsene Wenger team with telegraphic understanding with hsi c0-partner and all midfielders?

Why does everybody always go on about the central midfield? Has anybody else noticed that we do not have top class winger (unless you count Arshavin in that role) and not one top class goal scorer, other than Eduardo?

It is too easy for you to go on about a "libro" etc and all that bullshizzle, but the rest of the team is pretty average, and the back ups are worse than average.

We need more characters like TH14...and more visitors like WHiteAhrtlotPricness, Gazza, Pioneer, youngdish...

Irritate the hell out of us....but hey..it is all good and clean fun...

See, sicne 3 seasons ago, Arsenal is so downed and out that our Top-4 members do not deem Arsenal FOrum worth a visit unlike thsoe glorious years of 2003-2005 before our TEAM went t.i.ts up and kaput...

So you honestly class Walcott as top class? Dude, come on man. It is total stupidity to class Theo anywhere near top class. Pires, Arshavin, Ronaldo, Ljungberg (for a year or so), Ribery and Messi were/are top class, Walcott is on the verge of greatness, but he is not pushing it.

TH14 is right, Walcott is not ready, he's got top class speed and is improving but he's not top class yet. He's not consistant enough he was in poor form for us then goes off the play for England scores a hattrick and all of a sudden he's top class again .

I have to say Im with TH14 on this Walcott has done little to convince me as yet,and if someone could dreg up old posts I have been banging on that we have no NATURAL wide players,those who can get behind defences and actually cross accuratly and cosistently.Dare I say similar to what Lennon did to Evra but with a good delivery as the end product which IMO is all thats missing from Lennons game.Walcott to often resembles a rabbit caught in headlights,he is not a natural wideman and I think will eventually play through the middle.

3 - Developing his delivery and passing skills in opening up defence and pass yourself out of a tight situaiton when surrounded by 2 or 3 defenders.

4 - Learn how to time his runs like Henry, from deep, from flanks and cut into centre.

5 - And when he is rotated into centrals triker, it is naturally and isntinctively for Walcott to be a mobile central striker, holding the balls even surroudne dby 3 or 4 defenders, and timed his passes to brign his co-striekr into place or witht hat developed peripheral vision, sliped a pass to an atacking midfielder like Fabregas drifting noto the box un-notice to run clear to goal.

Many a times lasts eaosn that Adebayor or Van Persie and even Hleb failed to pick-yp Fabregas who dirfted un-noticed into the box - expecting a quick one-two or a one-touch one-pas ball to him.

Instead, Helb or Adebayor wil imediately take the bal out of teh box with a frustrated hanging out tehre in free space.

But with Arshavin, Eduardo and development of Walcott and Vela, we are going to re-discover our one-two passes in the box.

After World CUp 2006, Walcott was expected to instantly step into senor teama nd paly Wengerball as if he is borned to it.

It is not.
And the french SPine needs 2 to 3 seasons to develop that telegraphic understanding.

And how many seasons had Fabregas palyed with hsi rpesent regular partners and team-mates including Walcott?

FFS!! Denilson, Diaby, Walcott, Nasri adne ven van Persie are playing their very first FULL SEASON together.....and what hapen?

HORRENDOUS INJURY LIST which scrapped this season and senior players got tos atrt all voer again to develop that telegraphic understanding for 2009/10 season.

You notice that Rosicky, Arshavin, Eduardo, Adebayor and Walcott enver play together?

main Atribute:

We need to inject that element fo unrpedictability into team-plays again.
And Walcott's apce is just one of the many weapons in our arsenal now to inject pace and unpredicatbaility into out impotent attacks.

Imagine Walcott hovering around in centre circle and by-line.
Which team si daft enoguh to let Walcott un-marked with ALL their full-backs and CB counter-attacking Arsenal?

Teh name Walcott alone - whiche quate t pace and lightning counter-attack - will make ROma to devise another defence to handle Walcott.

This si teh FEAr that Walcott will bring to any opponents, merley by being named in the team.

mapleleafgoonerHe did say it will take another 3-4 seasons for the current team to gell and deliver the trophies. And that is provided the key players stay put.

The key question is; will the key players stay put if we fail to clinch the 4th spot? thank heavens villa look like they are imploding and everton are dropping points but without CL next season i really can't count on them staying.loyalty and football hadly mix now.

lack of genuine wingers make it easy to predict arsenals play especially now that our quick passing fast counter attacks are missing.

RVP is really an enigma as i am forced to agree with Merlion that he has failed to gel or form a great strike force with any player.i would ship him to the right wing were he plays well for the dutch team if i were wenger.

i still feel our mifield lacks steal and we can't dominate games with what we have unless we really really speed up our play with zippy passes like we did against milan.

Ade's scored a hattrick this season, RvP hasn't and people still say RvP is our best player,

judging someone on one game for england when he scored the same amount of goals as he has done for his club with over 15 times the more minutes isn't a good case, when he failed to score passed a few shite teams.

If people stopped comparing good footballers with great ones the argument as to whether one footballer is better than the other would have no frame of reference, therefore nobody would know what was good and what was great ?!
Maybe you meant that people should not compare players that are plying their trade in different positions ?

Merlion96IN WENGER WE TRUST.
It is like sterling silver, tarnished and blacken for the last 4 seasons.

Spit and polish needed to bring it back to its mirror-like finish.

Trust My Philosophy cos Arsene Knows.

I wish he boots Ade out of the club and flushes some characters out as well and replaces them with quality.we really need quality backup for the times when injury which is a definate constant in football comes along.for it always comes.
i really doubt if the likes of theo,eduardo, fab, rosicky were fit we will be in this situation that we find ourselves.
the only thing is that wenger may never have signed arshavin if fab wasn't injured.

Are you joking or you really mean what you are saying.well since wenger thinks he is vital to arsenal then i guess he thinks ade is good enough but frankly Ade is a complete joke.i still cringe that he is our African footballer of the year.a very bad year for our african players.

Wenger plays him, he's one of the highest paid players at the club, Wenger busted a gut to keep him and wouldn't sell him for 20mil and get two 10mil unknowns the price wenger normally gets his players for. Yes he hasn't had the goals recently but we are playing a different style to last season which will change when players like Eduardo are back.

Ade is the best lone striker in the league, this season he's played with RvP or Bendtner, his game better with him having an extra creative mid behind him or a creative striker like Eduardo. When he plays in a 5 man mid or with Eduardo then i will comment on what he can do or can't do.

This team is a different team to last season's so the whole team need time to adapt.

Linford Christie had pace but he couldnt play football,Walcott may come good I think he will but as a central striker,what Im saying is he is not a wide man and certainly not top class yet.Most discussions re Arsenal are about what could or may happen what most of us dispute is the here and now.The future is something no one can predict,its massively flawed because you just cant say who is going to progress and who will not,in the meantime as mapleleaf has quite rightly stated we may lose key players bringing us back to start again.

I will keep saying this, it is great that Walcott has pace, he has done some wonderful things for us, but in the majority of his matches for the club he has been poor. He seemed to be coming good, but he was still doing little compared to the likes of Pires etc.

He will be an amazing player, no doubt, but he does not fit into a fully fir Arsenal team, unless you leave van Persie on the bench.

Hes done miles better than the likes of henry, pires, and arshavin did at the age of 20! He needs games to show his true potential and his shoulder popping out every other game hasnt helped. Hopefully by next season he will be a regular starter and you can eat your words.

Im sorry I got bored reading half way through that last pile of crap, but its funny how your the same person who claims Denilson is one of the best defensive midfielders in the world, or at least "top 5" yet you think Walcott, who scored a world class hattrick against croatia and tore about 6 liverpool players to shreds, isnt Arsenal quality.

Im not sure what drugs you are on but I recommend staying off them your going delusional. Or better yet you could try thinking before opening your mouth...

Yet again, idiots who think in black and white fail to understand that you can have two opinions on the same issue. I rate Walcott, I also rate Denilson. Walcott was not playing like that in every match, he scored a "World Class" hat-trick in one game, a magical run in another, a few other moments here and there. But you fail to accept that Denilson is playing well because he does not foam at the mouth?

Just because I do not agree with the popular opinion that Walcott is a fantastically brilliant and highly important member of our team does not make me delusional.

i went back and dug up this article i wrote while soul searching on whether i can trust mr. wenger to deliver on his philosophy........ and since i wrote this, we have only managed to finish 3rd to secure CL football while failing to deliver a single trophy...since then we were smashed and humiliated out of the CL by barca and lost to wigan after being 2 goals up...... etc.......

a lot has happened since i wrote this and my verdict as regards the questions asked are; I DON'T TRUST WENGER AND HIS PHILOSOPHY AGAIN...I THINK THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS HAS SET IN...,I FEEL HE IS DELUSIONAL AS TO HIS OBSESSION TO WIN WHILE MAINTAINING THIS CRAZY SYSTEM...........I DON'T BELIEVE HE WILL SIGN THE QUALITY PLAYERS WE NEED UNLESS I SEE THE PLAYERS HOLDING OUR JERSEYS UP[I KNOW THE MOROCCAN LAD IS ON THE WAY BUT STRONG RUMOURS SUGGEST CESC IS HEADING TO BARCA... I PRAY ITS FALSE COS I JUST LOVE THAT LAD]

BOTTOM LINE FOR ME IS THAT WENGER HAS FAILED WOEFULLY THIS SEASON AND HAS MANY SHAMEFUL GAMES I WOULD LOVE TO FORGET LITTERED IN BETWEEN ............ VERY SAD........

Yes you are right he cant be trusted to deliver, But Cesc will saty one more season. If he buys 4 good players i will believe in him again.

- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

couldn't help feeling dejected when i read this article i wrote March 5th 2009. apart from 2 FA Cup is the same old same old. Since then more fans are loosing faith with wenger. they are becoming more vocal. since then wenger has been labeled delusional even by some fans that have chanted in wenger we trust. since then ticket prices have increased and we have lost players...

Do we still TRUST wenger?? should we swallow our doubts and give him 3 more years according to his contract extension???

We record all IP addresses on the Sportnetwork message boards which may be required by the authorities in case of defamatory or abusive comment.
We seek to monitor the Message Boards at regular intervals.
We do not associate Sportnetwork with any of the comments and do not take responsibility for any statements or opinions expressed on the Message Boards.
If you have any cause for concern over any material posted here please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing
abuse@sportnetwork.net